Wednesday, July 30, 2008

When I entered Rondo's Fugly Dice contest I has no expectations of anything but a novelty prize. All the man promised was loot swagged from an old stone's crib, after all. Maybe if I get real lucky, I thought, he sends me a souvenir shot glass from a nudey bar called Beansnappers.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My dad sells real estate for a living, and every now and he'll pass along something interesting he salvages from a vacant house. Odd bits of knick-knackery, old LPs and paperbacks, etc.

He recently sent me a package containing a brown accordion file labeled "Kelly Pollock - game notes." The file is splitting on the bottom, held together with brittle old tape, and just crammed with gaming stuff: a few early 90s Dragon mags, some Gamma World modules, a copy of Keep on the Borderlands sans cover (just for fun I might have to redraw the maps from memory), pages cut out of a Michigan county almanac annotated with encounter ideas and Pitz Burke style names for the cities, and page after page of loose leaf notes.

The folder also contains, in one of those coincidences so common among EC fans, an incredible collection of Encounter Critical material! Along with a copy of the Second Corrected Edition, there are a couple issues of Daniel David's "Journey Masters Journal," and even the ultra-rare EC module Asteroid 1618, all gathered in a ziplock bag with a price tag from Ludington Goodwill.

Judging from the Dragon issue dates and clues in the notes, this kid was running Encounter Critical as late as 1995! I've never heard of another sighting of the game "in the wild" that late, not till it was rediscovered a few years ago.

And what's more, a bunch of the game notes in the folder are homebrew EC stuff, including a three part adventure, "Gods From Outer Space" The adventure makes it pretty clear that Kelly and his crew were big-time horror fans -- there are references and ripoffs of everything from Lovecraft to Michael Myers to Troma. I've been trying to polish it up for World Adventure Writing Month, but it's in a rougher and more disorganized state than I realized and I keep riffing off it in my own directions, so it won't be finished for a couple more weeks.

In the meantime, I took a few minutes tonight putting together an inspirational mixtape. Some of the songs and bands are namechecked directly in the adventure or Kelly's notes, especially the middle adventure "Black Hole Metal Kult." Others are my own tribute to Kelly and his gonzo crew. Track list after the cut.Black Hole Metal Kult: Gods from Outer Space

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Noisms of Monsters & Manuals and SirLarkins of RPG Corner have both posted today about the dearth of truly excellent RPG fiction. I have nothing to add to that conversation -- aside from one Dragonlance book and the odd short story in Dragon I haven't read any fiction with direct RPG connections (though once or twice in my feverish youth I wrote my own game inspired short stories).

However, on the subject of the campaign background stories he wrote as a teenager, Noisms commented, "Most of them involved lots of severed limbs, blood...if I remember correctly." That sounds awful familiar. Only my stories weren't written for gaming purposes. No, they were for the creative writing unit in my 6th grade class at St. Joseph Elementary. I'm proud to say that with the stirring tale "My Life as an Axe" I single-handedly kick-started a fad among my classmates for violent splatter-gore. For a few weeks a classroom full of Catholic kids in tasteful uniforms was churning out head-chopping, vein-ripping, blood-spraying mayhem like we were auditioning for Fangoria. That we got to read our two page murderfests aloud in formal presentations only spurred us on.

To her credit our teacher handled it with utter composure. Never once was she ruffled, not even when the chirpy Summer (or was it her twin sister Daydream?) read aloud a tale that featured an unlucky time traveler getting bitten in half by a tyrannosaurus (I was extremely annoyed that the T. rex picked up its meal with its forearms before chomping it. I'm certain you will sympathize.). No, the late Mrs. Matasky tolerated our grade school Grand Guignol with mild amusement and a deflating unflappability. If she was shocked or disgusted by us she was far too stern and savvy to let on, and put the whole craze to a stop one afternoon by calmly instructing us to find a different subject. We did; we knew better than to test her patience.

Monday, July 21, 2008

I gotta confession. Almost from the moment I decided to do something for World Adventure Writing Month I've been stricken with Homework Syndrome: it's this dumb thing where something fun seems like homework as soon as there's even a semi-formal commitment involved.

For example: reading the NYT Book Reviews online or in the paper? Fun and interesting! But subscribing to a daily email update? Two or three of those pile up in my inbox and they become a chore. And so it is with my adventure. Brainstorming encounters and critters and NPCs? Love that pschitt! Writing it all down on like paper or a computer? Shoot, I'll start tomorrow. The Tour de France just startedis in the Pyrennes is in the Alps.

Boiling it down I guess I'm sort of a lazy dilly-dallier. In the words of Professor Impossible I'm "a daydreamer. A sassmouth! And, not infrequently, a bit of a gigglepuss." So I'm behind. But it's not like I've done nothing. I've got a page of new monsters roughed out and a draft of the first adventure of a three-parter.

And this afternoon I drew up the map for part two. Made a notebook sketch first:

And here's the final map, finished save for shading and numbering. I think it turned out pretty good.

Hey presto, getting the map down on paper has me revved up to start keying it, so here's to progress!

MP3: Meads of Asphodel, Sluts of the Netherworld (Compact Disc)Here's a song that goes out to Rondo's Graveyard Tramps, who make an appearance on this level.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

[My gaming readers can feel free to skip this if they like. It's an elegy I wrote for the coolest cat I've known, who died a year ago today, and I post it mainly for my wife and friends who read this page.]

Sir Walter Scott wrote, of dogs, "I have sometimes thought of the final cause of [their] having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much [the loss] after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?"

Maybe so. But at the moment, fuck that guy. Elmo died almost a week ago at the age of only eight and it is stony comfort indeed to imagine a grief more sharp or a loss more aching if we had but had more time together.

He was a cat of outsized emotions: both fiery and 'fraidy, smart yet screwball, "one half boneless cuddler and one half manic nutcase," as I wrote a few weeks after he came to live with us. He raised so much hell the first month or two we had him we thought he was defective. He had a bit of a mean streak, it's true, yet in the end I have known no cat more loving or more eager for human companionship. He wasn't much one for being picked up and petted, but he was quick to find my lap when I settled down to read, or to scooch next to Anne when she knitted on weekend mornings. Hardly a night has passed in years that he did not sleep at my feet.

He ate, played, begged, bit, stretched and slept with gusto, damn, you bet. I sometimes feared he'd burn out quickly, so fiercely did he live. To our heartbreak this has proven true. Healthy and strong till almost the last, Elmo died on July 17th of acute renal failure. We gave him every chance we could, but an intense course of IV therapy could not flush his busted kidney, and on his second day in the hospital, after he gained two pounds of fluid in 12 hours, we said goodbye. He died without dignity, great patches of fur shaved, eyes red-rimmed and leaking, swollen like a balloon, till the vet came and let the life out of him. No dignity, but there is no small grace in the end of his suffering, no matter how much or how long ours might linger.

When we stepped into his enclosure at Wisconsin Humane six years ago it was to look at another cat, but Elmo chose us. He crawled into my lap and, not gently, mashed my chin with his forehead and cheek and it was clear that there would be no other cat for us. This is no less true now that he is gone: he will always be my cat, the cat, to whom all others will be compared.

Creeping Crud is a fast spreading swarm organism born from pentagonal trapezohedronic seeds from space. It is the scourge of the Amalgamated Postal Corps throughout Vanth. The seeds are highly sought after by collectors of gewgaws as well as the Sect of The Ten Faced God, who often trade them through the mail. Unless the correct phasic precautions are taken when the seeds are transported an outbreak of Creeping Crud swarms may occur (An example of poor packaging would be wrapping a seed in a few squares of TP and hoping for the best).

A Creeping Crud swarm attacks by rolling on the floor underfoot, waiting for the unwary to slip and fall (sneak attack 77%). When this happens they engulf the victim and attack with painful stings. The sting causes an itchy and depressing rash over d% of the victims body (-10% ATT values, -20% Seduce, victim will feel a crushing sense of disappointment about how his or her life turned out, which may explain why postal workers can be so surly) and unless a successful roll of Consume Alien Food is made the victim will produce a new Creeping Crud seed in 2-20 days in a manner left to the reader's imagination.

MP3s: Memphis Jug Band (CD or Download)* Gator Wobble* Fourth Street Mess AroundGot nothing to do with the above, but sure do make me feel better.

Additional Lore : Tripodocephaloi are found in crumbling ruins, underground vaults, and desecrated holy places. They act as guardians for shrines, tombs and other sites and are never found wandering without purpose. Their origins are mysterious: some point to legends telling of temple thieves cursed into stone by the gods, while others feel the tripodocephaloi are constructed by mortal priests or magicians. A few eccentric scholars even argue they are made by gorgons as some cruel sort of artwork or jest.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Got crappy dice? Maybe you got one that's old and rolled out, or the dog chewed on it, or it dropped behind the radiator never to be seen again till you got the carpets cleaned before moving out of that one apartment with the ant problem. Maybe it sat in a damp basement for a few years while you pursued a more "normal" hobby like bowling or fantasy baseball.

Well, now you can trade 'em in. Got a hankering to win a booby prize stolen from an oldstoner's bedroom? Check out Rondo's Fugly Dice Contest. Maybe you'll win a thirty year old copy of Penthouse Digest, or a groovy poster of that one poem about heroin. Maybe an out of date Rockford Fosgate catalog or a bandanna with a hole burned in it where a hot ember broke off a stick of incense. Fantastic prizes can be had from any damn contest, but only Rondo guarantees the sort of crap you wouldn't pay a quarter for at a yard sale. So check it out!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Tirapheg Week will resume, but the topic of the day seems to be pumpkin-headed bugbears, whether in the Driver's Wilderlands where they mix freely with their more hirsute brethren (Gob' maiden to father, "Da, this is my new mate, Gordie"), or in Sham's Solstice where they grow from seeds in a weird kind of goblin horticulture.

While at first I was all for the Pumpkin-Heads, today I had a terrible thought. I saw a glimpse of the (mutant) future, and it has convinced me that the bugbear is a menace that must be stopped, indeed, a weed of the very vilest sort...

Bug Burr

No. Enc: usually 1Alignment: NeutralMove: As host creatureArmor Class: As host creature, but at least AC 6Hit Dice: As host creature + 2hp per dieAttacks: Bite or caustic pulp, plus any other attacks of host creatureDamage: 2d6, or 1d6, plus other attacks as host creatureSave: L7Morale: 8Hoard Class: Usually none

Bug burrs are invasive symbiotes, carnivorous mutant gourds that hunt and reproduce by taking root in the bodies of other creatures. The body of a creature that is overgrown by a bug burr is encased by tough greenish fibers and may sprout leafy tendrils. Its nervous and circulatory systems are completely entwined by innumerable tiny roots, and a brightly colored pumpkin or squash-like fruit with a toothy maw and sunken optical pits replaces the host creature's head.

Bug burrs are skilled, intelligent predators but not sentient. They attack with a vicious bite in addition to whatever other natural weapons their host creature possesses. Up to three times per day they can spit a gout of caustic pulp and seeds in a 20" cone. All creatures within range take 1d6 damage and must save versus poison or be implanted with bug burr seeds. Those affected will not feel any immediate ill effects, but after 2d6 hours they will suffer severe pains as the seeds begin to sprout. The seeds do not inflict any damage, but are so agonizing that victims take a cumulative -1 per day penalty to all attack and melee damage rolls, and a 10' per day penalty to their movement rates. After 1d4+4 days they will be barely able to move at all, and will seek a secluded place to finish their transformation into a new bug burr.

Bug burrs do not use technology, weapons or tools, nor do they value treasure. On occasion a humanoid victim may still carry goods or coins if its gear and clothing have not yet rotted away. They are solitary and agressive, but are sometimes tamed by pumpkin men (Mutant Future, p90), who have learned to control their seed growth.

The Chopping Blokes are a freebooting band of limb traders who maraud across southern Vanth on the hovercraft Guillotine. Sailing land and sea alike they leave a trail of hook-handed and stump-legged victims in their wake. Though by no means a gentle bunch they work fast and clean, processing their "donors" with the self-sharpening and auto-cauterizing limb slicers that equip their ship.

The captain of the Guillotine and queen of the Blokes is Greta Hipp. A freak Lamarckian mutant born to champion three-legged racers, Greta has multiple detachable limbs--three each of arms, legs, and heads. Ordinarily she wears her own heads and arms but affects a pair of peg legs, but naturally she maintains an arsenal of specialized limbs for battle and adventuring. Her eyes are green and grey and blue, and she's a natural blond, brunette and redhead.

Greta, rather fetching with her extra limbs detached

Her crew is steady and loyal. Greta keeps their pillaging in check, but their violent urges find an outlet in frequent skirmishes with other limb traders, bandits and privateers. When battle is certain the captain arms herself with brawny wooky or frankenstein fists and a robodroid arm with built-in grappling hook. She often dons grimacing gargoyle faces or blank manikin heads to unnerve her foes. Her weapons of choice are twin rock salt pistols, cutlass, and a stingray whip.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Ah, the original Fiend Folio. Many gamers dislike the book, and apparently it was so poorly received that after two separate negative reviews in Dragon Magazine* the Folio's editor Don Turnbull was allowed a rebuttal in a later issue. The book sold reasonably well but was allowed to go out of print after only two years. Reportedly Gary Gygax himself thought poorly of the book.

None of which lessens my love for it one iota. In fact the often reviled Tome of Creatures Malevolent & Benign gave this blog its name, and inspired several of my earliest posts here! It has its share of goofy monsters, like nearly all monster books do. OK, perhaps more than its share. But I love the Folio's homebrew roots, its sense of humor, the fantastic art by Russ -- as distinctive a stylist as Erol Otus in my book. And in fairness it contains many of the game's more memorable foes as well: the gith and the slaadi, the drow and svirfneblin, the revenant and the death knight.

Of course it also has the spectacularly inexplicable flumph, which has earned a sort of mascot status among gamers of a certain stripe, and was notably featured in a running gag in the D&D webcomic Order of the Stick. Even more bizarre though, is the tirapheg, a spike-armed, stump-legged manikin man with a mouth in its belly and a craving for carrion. I suppose it's a pretty silly monster, yeah, but it has always fascinated me. There is something eerie about its blank faces and staring eyes, its tentacle-whiskered mouth and grasping claw. It teeters on a line between the absurd and the horrific.

Enough apologetics. All of this is mere prelude. From now till Friday it's Tirapheg Week here in my corner of the web, a new variation each day. Making the Best of My Very Worst Ideas. That's the Malevolent & Benign Promise.

If you're still with me, take a jump into the Mutant Future just after the cut.

* Ed Greenwood complained that the "Flat taste didn't go away" and the other review related the "Observations of a semi-satisfied customer." Ouch!

Not too long ago Edsan of Clanless/Mutants posted a great write up of the flumph for Mutant Future, so I thought I'd kick things off likewise.

When gene sequencing programs go haywire or nanoviruses infect the spawning vats, clone manufactories sometimes produce the strange mutants called Broken Men. They vary wildly in form, their blandly human appearance twisted by misshapen limbs and multiple legs, arms and heads. Arms grow into spikes, claws or whips. They hop, limp and crawl on backwards feet or serpentine legs. Some have two or three heads and some have no heads at all, eyes and mouths gaping from their chests or elsewhere. The tables below can be used to determine the forms of individuals or groups encountered.

Broken men are semi-intelligent at best. They mumble and titter amongst themselves but have no semblance of language or culture. They are motivated chiefly by hunger for decaying flesh, and have no compunction about devouring their own dead. Some venture from the clone factories to rob graves and even to hunt live prey, travelling only at night since 90% suffer from the albinism mutation. A broken man attacks with whatever natural weapons it possesses, up to 6 attacks per round based on its number of functional arms. It may also attack with its mental mutations.

Mutations: albinism, bizarre appearance. Each broken man has one mental mutation, plus one per head.

Arms: Roll d6 for quantity and d8 for type (once per individual or once per arm)1-3. Normal4. Claw5. Spike or blade6. Stump (arm useless for attacking)7. Telescoping (up to 10' reach)8. Whip

Legs: Roll d4 for quantity and d8 for type (once per individual or once per leg)1-3. Normal4. Backwards5. Serpentine or tentacled6. Springing (leaps of up to 20' once per round)7. Stilt-like (Movement 120' [90'])8. Stump (GM's decision whether this limb affects movement)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Broken Hearts Clan control the lucrative vending machine and carny games rackets in Bloodhaven. Most of the Clan are goblings. Theories abound on the provenance of goblings -- some allege they are nocturnal hoblings, others insist they are a surface-dwelling goblin tribe. Some even say they are a hybrid of the two races, but since a tendency toward foul tempers and revengeful natures is one fact about goblings which is not in dispute, they say so quietly.

Currently the Broken Hearts are led by the rakish Roff the Gob. His lieutenants are the shaggy klengish warlock Mothreena, the half-gator, half-gob, all-badass skater Cubeena, and "Wrench" Toffling, visionary, inventor and charlatan.

(Numbersin some of the backgrounds refer to level-advancement tasks

Mothreena the Mysterious (Warlock 5)

Mothreena keeps her background a closely held mystery, though it isn't unusual really: blissful childhood as the doted upon daughter of a modestly successful klengon arms dealer; predictable rejection of her family in her rebellious teen years; drudge, apprentice, lover and ultimately killer of an older wizard. All too dull and bourgeois, and not at all in keeping with the Mothreena‘s immense self-regard. She sees herself as a queen, ermined by her magick-induced beard and pelt, and she wields her hauteur like a royal scepter.

Loathe to sully herself with menial tasks and impatient by nature, Mothreena is quick to use Ensorcel for many small chores, despite the damage this abuse of magic does to her mundane abilities. Major spells of her invention include Wall of Silk and the senses befuddling Mystery. Her familiar is a drakcat summoned with her spell Magic Pet.

Runcible "Wrench" Toffling (Scientist 3/Criminal 1)

A brilliant theoretician but prone to over-promise and under-deliver, Runcible “Wrench” Toffling has often found his genius diverted from exploring the mysteries of creation to escaping his creditors. He’s currently hired on with the Broken Hearts clan, having found that duping the rubes is as much a science as chemistry or electronics. He still dreams, however, of building a fully Tesseractive Buckminster Sphere, and thereby ending Vanth’s isolation from galactic commerce. Or so he tells potential patrons, anyway.

It is rumored that Cave Alligator lizard-matrons devour all but the strongest of their spawn. If you ask Cubeena about it she has a ready answer that starts with her fist and rhymes with your face. On her best behavior she is surly, foul-mouthed and abrasive, and she's not going to take a snipped nickel’s worth of crap from the likes of you. What she does when she isn’t skating or sparring is not your business, dig? And you don't ever wanna talk smack about her mother.

Despite her grouchy ways, Cubeena is well-liked by her fellow Broken Hearts Clan goblings, and though they may jeer at her (behind her back, natch), they respect her and do what she asks. This has caused some conflict with the imperious Mothreena.

Cubeena is sweet on Wrench, who keeps her deck and trucks running smoothly. By which I mean her skateboard, perv.

In her youth Cubeena was Jury Prize winner and crowd fave at the Trog Agog All-Cave Biker Tourney. Other highlights of her career include the (W1) slaying of an orc chieftain in a skate-by with her gavial ax, and the (B2) perfection of the Alligator Oop, a ramp-assisted self-cannonball maneuver, which she (W2) used to crumple the giantess Vogra the Ogra by smashing her with an armored hobling.

A gobling from Bloodhaven, Rofford the Gob began his criminal career shilling counterfeit god-tokens during high festival season on the Hierophants' Isle. (It's anyone's guess how the pan-animist Suldukus can tell a real god from a fake.) Incarcerated on a prison ship, Gob (2) soon controlled the convicts’ black market, while charming the brig commandant into making him trustee and chief deck swab. This misplaced trust gave Gob the freedom he needed to (3) organize a mutiny and steer the ship to the freebooting Mercenary Coast, where he hung his shingle as an expert lock snip and fingersmith. Hired and betrayed by Blackhawk’s chancellor, (4) a burglary turned into an assassination when Gob was forced to kill the adenoidal Prince and his guard to escape. He fled through the endless dungeon 'neath Blackhawk Castle and in the course of adventures there (5) stole a Magic Ring from the cave hobling Mugs Allgloome. He emerged at last from the dungeon in the forest near Bloodhaven, hitchhiked into the city, and (6) promptly won control of the Broken Hearts Clan by beating the former chief in three straight hands of Crooked Vulkin.

Gob is remarkably angelic for a gobling. His tousled auburn curls frame so boyish and naive seeming a face that’s he is often mistaken for a tyro or simpleton. He turns this to his advantage with merchants, thieves and women alike, including his current lover Mothreena.